Indianapolis is a city with many names. From Naptown to Hoosier City, the Crossroads of America to the Jazz Capital of the Midwest, Indy has gained a reputation for many events.
One of the city's highest profile is the NFL Scouting Combine, a four-day extravaganza of football excellence in which front office personnel fix their eyes on the next generation of NFL talent.
It's a time-honored tradition, one that has become a spectacle in and of itself. Whether it's the 40-yard dash, the bench press or throwing drills, it seems like everything just means more under the lights of Lucas Oil Stadium.
But when did the event that marks the start of the NFL offseason for so many come to be? And how did those in charge decide on a place like Indianapolis — a major city, yes, but not a booming metropolis by any means — as its host site?
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The Sporting News details the history of the NFL Combine — namely, how it came to be hosted in the Colts' home city.
Why is the NFL Combine always in Indianapolis?
Indianapolis hasn't housed an NFL team for all that long, at least when compared to some of the league's oldest sides. That didn't make it any less appealing for the league to designate as the home of the NFL Combine, though.
The NFL awarded its draft combine to Indianapolis is 1987. The move was easy to make, in retrospect; after holding the inaugural combine in Dallas in 1982, the league dovetailed between warm weather sites in Tampa, New Orleans and Phoenix.
The varying nature of those locations made it a challenge for players and team personnel to reach the combine. Indianapolis, meanwhile, is smack dab in the middle of the country, a more appealing proposition for those traveling great miles to attend the event.
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the Colts have played in a dome stadium since spurning Baltimore in the middle of the night on March 29, 1984.
Indy's first home was the Hoosier Dome, a 60,000-seat marvel sealed with Teflon-coated fiberglass. Shielding attendees from the elements, it was the perfect equilibrium for NFL scouts to assess up and coming talent.
The Colts took their talents to Lucas Oil Stadium in 2007. However, the sparkling complex shared one distinct similarity with its predecessor: the field was encased with limestone, red brick — and a retractable roof.
The NFL didn't view the combine product as broken. So it didn't bother fixing it, leaving the youthful exhibition in Naptown — the place it has called home ever since.
There had been some buzz about potentially taking the combine on the road, as the league has done with the NFL Draft, but the NFL announced in January 2024 that the event would remain in Indy through at least 2025.
